Molly Dancing to Peter and the Wolf

In addition to the video, here are Molly's latest thoughts...

Yesterday, Molly colored a picture that included a star and a Christmas tree.  As she narrated the story behind the picture she told us, "I think Jesus is happy because I wrote a Christmas story."

The day before that, Molly was thinking about sharks.  Possibly they have been learning about sharks in preschool?  I'm not sure.  She turned to me and said, "Good thing there are nurse sharks so that if any shark gets hurt, they have someone to make them better."  She paused for awhile to think about this, and then added, "Mom, are nurse sharks evil?"

Emily is a Month Old

 

Emily was a month old on Monday.  She already looks so different from when she was born, and is clearly growing very quickly.  She still fits into most of her 0-3 month clothes, but we’ve gotten out all the 6 month clothes and she fits into those too. I’m not sure that we have real smiles from her yet, but the edges of her mouth are starting to turn up, and her eyes will track the Itsy Bitsy Spider if you do the motions while you sing.

She also is eroding Austin’s hopes of early potty training because she has stopped going to the bathroom every time her diaper is off.  At first it was like clockwork—she waited to go potty till her diaper was off—and gave her daddy the idea that he would be able to train her as soon as she could hold up her head.  Riiight.

She is already so much better than either of her older siblings at taking a bottle, which is very nice for me.  Unfortunately, nursing has been challenging lately because she has reflux and arches her backs and screams in pain during feedings.  Pumping bottles makes feeding her out of the house possible.  Of course given our allergic track record as a family we are looking into whether the reflux is made worse by an allergy.  I personally am guessing it’s cow’s milk so I’m now dairy free, at least for awhile.  I think it’s helping but it’s only been a couple days and babies are so erratic from day to day, so am withholding judgment.

She is a great sleeper; her record so far is going 7 hours without feeding.  What a star.  The only time she is not a great sleeper is when she gets overtired.  Beware, lest she not sleep between feedings: she becomes a very good screamer.  Poor kid, when she’s too tired, she is inconsolable. 

Emily is treasured by her big sister.  Molly feels very proprietary over what Emily wears every day.  Molly will also stop whatever she’s doing to watch Emily take a bath.  Molly threw a fit yesterday that I didn’t let her look at Emily’s eyes to check if they were open or closed (note, I had asked her three times to get dressed for preschool and we were late….)  She also has a fascination with me pumping bottles.  (I haven’t figured that one out and hope that fascination will end soon.) 

Molly regularly tells me things like, “Mom, don’t you LOVE having a baby?”  And I do.  Being with Emily is absolutely delightful. 

   

Quotes of the Day

*Yesterday Molly dressed up in her white tutu.  When she wears that tutu I tell her she looks like a snowflake ballerina.  She said, “Mommy, I don’t want to be a snowflake princess ballerina.  Today I am the sparkle on a moon beam.”

*Molly told me last week: “I love you as much as God does.”

*And then the other day she came up to me with a furrowed brow and worried expression, very concerned about her latest career dilemma.  “Mom, when I grow up I want to be a princess.  But being a nurse would be super fun too.”  She sighed as she said this, as if facing an impossible choice.

More Emily Pictures

Emily is two weeks old!  What a sweet baby she is.  She’s had one very fussy day, but apart from that, enjoys her sleep.  She has yet to wake up in the night more than two times, which is pretty awesome from this mama’s standpoint.  At the doctor yesterday she weighed in at 9 lbs 8 oz, up from 7 lbs 12 oz when she left the hospital.  Her heart murmur was also already almost gone—much faster than expected.

So far she likes tummy time more than either of my big kids… in fact, yesterday she almost fell asleep on her tummy and cried when Austin told her that tummy time was over.  She also likes watching her siblings, especially Molly, who continues to be enamored of her.  Even though she’s growing so fast, she continues to be very scrunchy and make lots of little baby grunting sounds.  We heartily approve and tell her not to grow up too fast.

Here are some of her latest pics:

        

Welcome, Emily!

 

Here are some pictures to satisfy the newly formed Emily fan club.  She is helping me pick her best shots right now as I type (totally conked out on my chest).  I could put her down—she sleeps fine without being held, but it’s hard to put such a snuggly little one down.  Especially when you have a seven year-old running around and you realize how amazingly short this time is.

Emily is an easy baby so far.  She is good at nursing, but also not as voracious as our other two—which is nice for me at nights.  This may change as she wakes up more, but I remember calling Molly my little barracuda even in the hospital.  Emily is typically more interested in sleeping and often makes me work to get her to eat a full feeding.

She is delightfully scrunchy, with the most exquisitely soft hair and skin.  It’s funny that she was 8 lbs 8 oz—that’s our biggest baby so far—but she seems absolutely tiny to me. 

Here are her greatest hits so far:

 

Molly’s Thoughts on Life

On Charlottesville…

As we drove south out of Charlottesville, Molly looked out the car window down a hill in a small section of Charlottesville called Belmont.  I guess from the hill she could see pretty far because she gasped and asked…

Molly: Is that New York City??!!

On her grandmother:

Molly: Did GoGo come over on the Mayflower?

Me: No, the Mayflower was a long time before GoGo.

Molly: I think GoGo came over on the Mayflower because she was on a big ship instead of coming to my birthday party.

On kicking:

Occasionally, Molly and Tucker have some problems getting along.  Tucker came to tell Austin one day last week that Molly had kicked him.

Austin: Molly, did you kick Tucker?

Molly: No.

Austin: Tucker, what do you say happened?

Tucker launched into a long explanation of their latest sibling spat.  When he got to the part about Molly kicking him, he enacted what happened… but apparently not well enough because Molly started miming what she had done in the background to clarify..  Turns out her kick had more knee and more force than Tucker was giving her credit for and she needed to set the record state….  Sometimes it’s hard to discipline with a straight face!

On marriage:

Molly was sitting in the chair in Austin’s office while he worked, and she was mumbling about something or other.  Austin finally figured out that she was telling him about her marriage dilemma. 

Molly: I just don’t know who to marry!

Austin: Do you know a lot of boys you want to marry?

Molly: No.

Austin: What’s the problem, then?

Molly: I don’t want to marry anyone older than me, and I don’t want to marry anyone younger than me and I don’t know anyone who was born on the same day!

[Once Austin established that people don’t have to be born on the same day to marry, Molly quickly decided she’d marry her friend Lukey who is all of 7 weeks her senior.]

Sibling Love

I overheard Molly and Tucker playing last night.

Molly: When we are grownups, I will marry you.  And I will follow you wherever you go!

Awwww…..

Quote of the Day

“Look what my fairy godparents gave me!” –Molly, holding a new icon that her godparents gave her to celebrate the anniversary of her baptism today

Molly’s Favorite Phrase

“What’s that smell?” –Molly

I hear this question at least five times a day.  The funny thing is that I’m the last person she should be asking what a smell is because I have allergies and am almost always stuffed up or sneezing. 

In other news, I’ve been working on how to take studio-esque pictures at home.  I really do like the posed kind of studio pictures, but the ones we got home from each kid’s school last year didn’t even look like them.  Then Molly was sick this year and missed her pictures and my commitment to hauling her somewhere to take a yearly picture has been very low.  So I’ve been experimenting with lighting and backdrops and came up with an easy set up that gave us some great pictures. 

Molly was soooo much easier to take good pictures of than Tucker.  Tucker has a fake camera smile that makes his eyes bug out, so he was quite the challenge.  I got a million great ones of Molly… and one of Tucker that was okay.  But the ones of the two kids together melt me. 

Here are some of Molly’s out-takes (I know, the lighting isn’t quite right on some of them but since they’re out-takes I didn’t take the time to correct it)…

 

And here are Tucker and Molly’s out-takes… see what a good influence Tucker is on the picture-taking process???  :)